18:31 Indeed, 1 who is God besides the Lord?
Who is a protector 2 besides our God? 3
44:20 If we had rejected our God, 4
and spread out our hands in prayer to another god, 5
46:5 God lives within it, 6 it cannot be moved. 7
God rescues it 8 at the break of dawn. 9
47:8 God reigns 10 over the nations!
God sits on his holy throne!
48:14 For God, our God, is our defender forever! 11
He guides 12 us! 13
57:2 I cry out for help to the sovereign God, 14
to the God who vindicates 15 me.
62:7 God delivers me and exalts me;
God is my strong protector and my shelter. 16
62:11 God has declared one principle;
two principles I have heard: 17
God is strong, 18
67:6 The earth yields its crops.
May God, our God, bless us!
68:20 Our God is a God who delivers;
the Lord, the sovereign Lord, can rescue from death. 19
71:12 O God, do not remain far away from me!
My God, hurry and help me! 20
72:18 The Lord God, the God of Israel, deserves praise! 21
He alone accomplishes amazing things! 22
78:19 They insulted God, saying, 23
“Is God really able to give us food 24 in the wilderness?
78:35 They remembered that God was their protector, 25
and that the sovereign God was their deliverer. 26
81:9 There must be 27 no other 28 god among you.
You must not worship a foreign god.
84:8 O Lord, sovereign God, 29
hear my prayer!
Listen, O God of Jacob! (Selah)
94:1 O Lord, the God who avenges!
O God who avenges, reveal your splendor! 31
1 tn Or “for.”
2 tn Heb “rocky cliff,” which is a metaphor of divine protection. See v. 2, where the Hebrew term צוּר (tsur) is translated “rocky summit.”
3 tn The rhetorical questions anticipate the answer, “No one.” In this way the psalmist indicates that the
4 tn Heb “If we had forgotten the name of our God.” To “forget the name” here refers to rejecting the
5 tn Heb “and spread out your hands to another god.” Spreading out the hands was a prayer gesture (see Exod 9:29, 33; 1 Kgs 8:22, 38; 2 Chr 6:12-13, 29; Ezra 9:15; Job 11:13; Isa 1:15). In its most fundamental sense זר (“another; foreign; strange”) refers to something that is outside one’s circle, often making association with it inappropriate. A “strange” god is an alien deity, an “outside god” (see L. A. Snijders, TDOT 4:54-55).
6 tn Heb “God [is] within her.” The feminine singular pronoun refers to the city mentioned in v. 4.
7 tn Another option is to translate the imperfect verbal form as future, “it will not be upended.” Even if one chooses this option, the future tense must be understood in a generalizing sense. The verb מוֹט (mot), translated “upended” here, is used in v. 2 of the mountains “tumbling” into the seas and in v. 6 of nations being “upended.” By way of contrast, Jerusalem, God’s dwelling place, is secure and immune from such turmoil and destruction.
8 tn Or “helps her.” The imperfect draws attention to the generalizing character of the statement.
9 tn Heb “at the turning of morning.” (For other uses of the expression see Exod 14:27 and Judg 19:26).
sn At the break of dawn. The “morning” is viewed metaphorically as a time of deliverance and vindication after the dark “night” of trouble (see Ps 30:5; Isa 17:14). There may be an allusion here to Exod 14:27 (where the Lord destroyed the Egyptians at the “break of dawn”) or, more likely, to the miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege, when the people discovered the dead bodies of the Assyrian army in the morning (Isa 37:36).
10 tn When a new king was enthroned, his followers would acclaim him king using this enthronement formula (Qal perfect 3ms מָלַךְ, malakh, “to reign,” followed by the name of the king). See 2 Sam 15:10; 1 Kgs 1:11, 13, 18; 2 Kgs 9:13, as well as Isa 52:7. In this context the perfect verbal form is generalizing, but the declaration logically follows the historical reference in v. 5 to the
11 tn Heb “for this is God, our God, forever and ever.” “This” might be paraphrased, “this protector described and praised in the preceding verses.”
12 tn The imperfect highlights the characteristic nature of the generalizing statement.
13 tn In the Hebrew text the psalm ends with the words עַל־מוּת (’al-mut, “upon [unto?] dying”), which make little, if any, sense. M. Dahood (Psalms [AB], 1:293) proposes an otherwise unattested plural form עֹלָמוֹת (’olamot; from עוֹלָם, ’olam, “eternity”). This would provide a nice parallel to עוֹלָם וָעֶד (’olam va’ed, “forever”) in the preceding line, but elsewhere the plural of עוֹלָם appears as עֹלָמִים (’olamim). It is preferable to understand the phrase as a musical direction of some sort (see עַל־מוּת [’al-mut] in the superscription of Ps 9) or to emend the text to עַל־עֲלָמוֹת (’al-’alamot, “according to the alamoth style”; see the heading of Ps 46). In either case it should be understood as belonging with the superscription of the following psalm.
14 tn Heb “to God Most High.” The divine title “Most High” (עֶלְיוֹן, ’elyon) pictures God as the exalted ruler of the universe who vindicates the innocent and judges the wicked. See especially Ps 47:2.
15 tn Or “avenges in favor of.”
16 tn Heb “upon God [is] my deliverance and my glory, the high rocky summit of my strength, my shelter [is] in God.”
17 tn Heb “one God spoke, two which I heard.” This is a numerical saying utilizing the “x” followed by “x + 1” pattern to facilitate poetic parallelism. (See W. M. W. Roth, Numerical Sayings in the Old Testament [VTSup], 55-56.) As is typical in such sayings, a list corresponding to the second number (in this case “two”) follows. Another option is to translate, “God has spoken once, twice [he has spoken] that which I have heard.” The terms אַחַת (’akhat, “one; once”) and שְׁתַּיִם (shÿtayim, “two; twice”) are also juxtaposed in 2 Kgs 6:10 (where they refer to an action that was done more than “once or twice”) and in Job 33:14 (where they refer to God speaking “one way” and then in “another manner”).
18 tn Heb “that strength [belongs] to God.”
19 tn Heb “and to the
20 tn Heb “hurry to my help.”
21 tn Heb “[be] blessed.” See Pss 18:46; 28:6; 31:21; 41:13.
22 tn Heb “[the] one who does amazing things by himself.”
23 tn Heb “they spoke against God, they said.”
24 tn Heb “to arrange a table [for food].”
25 tn Heb “my high rocky summit.”
26 tn Heb “and [that] God Most High [was] their redeemer.”
27 tn The imperfect verbal forms in v. 9 have a modal function, expressing what is obligatory.
28 tn Heb “different”; “illicit.”
29 tn Heb “
30 sn Psalm 94. The psalmist asks God to judge the wicked and affirms his confidence in God’s justice.
31 tn Heb “shine forth” (see Pss 50:2; 80:1).